


Set the Fire to the Third Bar

by azephirin



Series: As Certain Dark Things [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1000-3000 words, 1000-5000 Words, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, As Certain Dark Things, Autumn, Boarding School, Bonfires, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Separated Young, Sequel, Teacher-Student, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:46:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>After I have traveled so far, we'd set the fire to the third bar; we'd share each other like an island until, exhausted, close our eyelids and, dreaming, pick up from the last place we left off....</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Set the Fire to the Third Bar

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://roguebitch.livejournal.com/profile)[**roguebitch**](http://roguebitch.livejournal.com/)'s prompt _Sam/Dean, bonfires_. This is a sequel to [As Certain Dark Things](http://archiveofourown.org/works/51307), set a week or so later, and will make much more sense if you read that first. (It's not long!) Title and summary from "Set the Fire to the Third Bar," by Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright.

The week after fall break—that most eventful fall break—Dean learns about another school tradition: the annual bonfire.

Halloween's on a Tuesday this year, so the bonfire takes place the Friday before. "I don't get it," Dean says to his friend Ashley at breakfast that morning. As interns, they've been assigned check-in duty: making sure all the kids appear for the meal by 7:45 as they're supposed to. Privately Dean thinks it's pointless: The student prefects take attendance at the school's daily morning assembly at 8:00, and if the kids don't want to eat, they just check in the last minute, grunt a hello (maybe), and leave. But, as an intern, Dean's ranked only slightly higher than the freshmen in terms of school hierarchy, so he doesn't say anything.

Ashley, fresh out of Bowdoin and teaching English, shrugs. "What's to get? You light shit on fire. Also, I think there are doughnuts."

"Oh." Dean carefully doesn't think about what else fire can mean, what else the crackling heat can do. It's packed away, compartmentalized, and he's good at keeping it that way. Always has been. "Well, that makes it worthwhile, then. Good morning," Dean adds to a member of the basketball team who appears maybe a quarter of the way awake. The kid musters a wave, then heads for the coffee.

"We did it at Concord too," Ashley goes on, and Dean remembers that she was a boarding school kid herself. He only heard about this job through one of his professors at MIT, but Ashley's always wanted to come back and teach at a school like the one she went to. "They find some wood, stack it, light it up. It was usually pretty impressive—fifteen, twenty feet high. Plus, like I said, cider and doughnuts."

Dean remembers his ex-girlfriend Mackenzie's Wiccan phase, which included a celebration of Beltane during the summer they lived together in Boston, between their freshman and sophomore years of college. He recalls her telling him that Beltane originally included enormous bonfires; their modern urban reinactment, however, had mainly involved spending the weekend in bed, with a couple of token candles lit at various times. Not that Dean objected, though he found it ironic to observe a fertility festival when Mackenzie was, fastidiously, on the pill.

"I thought bonfires were a midsummer thing," he ventures.

"I think it's more of a New England fall thing," Ashley says. "Anyway, buck up, because guess who get to be on student immolation prevention duty."

The interns, of course.

+||+||+

 

The fire, true to Ashley's word, is a good fifteen feet in height, built on a square pallet about five feet on each side. It makes Dean shiver a little, and he wishes briefly and fervently that he were somewhere else. He supposes they'd have let him off from bonfire duty if he'd asked, but he's not about to pussy out. It's a freaking bonfire; the school's probably been doing these since the place was founded in the 1700s; he can deal.

It takes place on the baseball diamond—no grass—with plenty of fire extinguishers around; still, as the flames strive for the night sky, Dean crosses his arms and pretends he's not drawing in against himself. It's just, Christ, the wrong fucking time of year for this, only a few days away from a date he'd like to forget.

_Focus_, he thinks. There are kids around—some of his colleagues with families brought their children—and between grade-schoolers and the phalanx of high-school boys, this shit can get dangerous. Dean stands next to Ashley and tries to concentrate on the brisk late-October chill, on the steady heat of the mug of cider in his hands.

Sam is standing a few feet away, also drinking cider, surrounded by a group of seniors. Holding court, like always. The flames illuminate gold in his dark hair, and Dean knows that, despite the cold, Sam's skin will be warm. Dean doesn't look at him directly. Can't. Because there is the respectable New England gloss to this, and then there are the feral pagan roots, and then there's Dean's heart, thumping quick and audible in his chest. Dean's afraid that if he so much as looks Sam in the face, he won't be able to stop himself from pushing Sam into the outfield grass, tearing his clothes off, taking him right there with nothing covering them but the firelight, so that everyone knows who Sam belongs to.

He doesn't do it, of course. He stands with Ashley, keeps an eye on the students and the fac-brats, tries not to think about what Sam's body feels like (and now he _knows_ what it feels like) underneath his hands.

+||+||+

 

Later, when the fire is out and the kids have been dispatched back to the dorms, Dean gets ready for bed. Christ, he hopes he doesn't have nightmares. Speaking of pussy. It was a school bonfire on a goddamned baseball diamond, with a bunch of kids running around and people eating doughnuts and gossipping, and are his balls really so small that he's going to get nightmares from that?

He stays in the shower a long time, making sure the smell is gone, washing himself thoroughly, and then again, and then a third time to make sure he got it all.

He restrains himself from a fourth go-around. Maybe he really does need more therapy, he thinks. Can't get basic facts straight in his own head; loses his shit over a stupid prep-school tradition.

He comes out of the bathroom naked, drying his hair with a towel—

Sam's in his living room.

"Jesus Christ!" exclaims Dean, louder than he means to. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Your door wasn't locked."

Dean typically doesn't lock it when he's here. Most who live in the dorms, students and faculty alike, don't bother unless they're going out. They're behind many tons of stone walls, hundreds of thousands of dollars of electronic security, and until very recently, Dean had nothing to hide.

"What are you doing here?" Dean repeats.

"I wanted to make sure you were OK." In the dim light—the lamp in Dean's bedroom is on, but nothing else is—Sam's face is unreadable.

"I'm fine, Sam," Dean says.

"As fine as you were at the bonfire?"

Rather than answer, Dean turns to go put something on. This isn't something he wants to talk about ever, and certainly not when he's naked.

He doesn't make it to his dresser before Sam is behind him, long arms around his shoulders and chest, kisses pressed to the back of Dean's neck.

"Sam, we can't—" Dean whispers.

"Sean"—the houseparent over on Sam's hall—"already checked us in for the night." Yet another of the endless rounds of check-ins that define a boarding school's day. "He's in bed. I know you don't want to talk about it, Dean, and God knows I get that. But let me give you something good to dream about, at least." His hands have moved down now, stroking over Dean's hips and thighs. Dean isn't hard, but he could be if Sam would just move his touch by a few inches....

"Let me, Dean," Sam murmurs. "Let me touch you. Stroke you until you shake and come apart under my hands. I'll use my mouth, suck you until you're about to bite through your lip to keep from making noise."

"God, Sam—" Dean gasps, surrendering, as Sam's fingers close around his cock.

Sam's still dressed, and his shirt is soft against Dean's head as Dean leans back; Sam's body is solid and strong, and Dean thinks Sam must have showered, too, because he smells nothing but crisp, clean, and Dean turns to put his face against Sam's neck, breathe him in. The position's awkward, though, with Sam jerking him off like this, and Sam pushes Dean gently until he sprawls on the bed.

Sam undresses slowly, as though he knows Dean's watching (which of course he does), as though he's doing it as a show (which of course he is). He strips off his T-shirt, drops it with elegant carelessness on the floor; unbuttons his jeans, pulls them down slowly to reveal the outline of his own cock, hard and growing harder, in the boxer-briefs underneath. He's barefoot, and the jeans come off easily, and he palms himself, moves his hips to rub his erection against his hand before pulling the briefs down and off. Dean reaches for him; he can't help it, wants to feel the head and shaft of Sam's cock in his mouth, taste the beginnings of Sam's come on his tongue.

Sam holds him at bay with a groan: "Any other time, Dean, I'd be begging you for that." But now he stretches out over the length of Dean's body and kisses him, finally, thrusts gently to move their hips together. They fit as perfectly as they did before, and Dean spreads his legs a little, lets Sam control their speed and rhythm as they rock against each other.

Sam cups Dean's head in his hands as they kiss, and Dean lets his sounds escape into Sam's mouth. It feels good, amazing, all of Sam bared for him, covering him. Sam breaks the kiss, but his lips brush Dean's as he whispers, "So beautiful, Dean, oh my God. Want you so much, love how you kiss me, love how your cock feels in my hand, love the noises you make when you just can't help it." He lays a trail of kisses across Dean's jaw, down the line of his throat; he nips at Dean's collarbone and moves back up to lick the shell of his ear, suck gently on his earlobe, then ask, low, "Do you want to come, Dean? Do you want to come for me?"

Dean can't answer; if he lets any sound out, it'll be a moan that the entire hall might hear.

"Yeah, I know you do," Sam goes on, and moves to the side to wrap his hand around Dean's cock, pass his long, dexterous fingers over the head, under the glans. "Do it, Dean, come in my hand," and Dean does, shuddering, arching, his cry stifled by the press of Sam's mouth over his. And with two hard thrusts, Sam's climaxing, too, slick and hot on Dean's belly, coating them both.

They lie tangled together for a moment; then Sam leans over for the box of tissues on the nightstand and cleans them up. He settles back against Dean, pressed close behind him, and kisses the hollow underneath his ear. He says softly, "Go to sleep."

"You can't stay," Dean manages.

"I won't. Just long enough to let you fall asleep. Okay?"

"You can't show up like that again, Sam."

"I know. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. You needed it." He kisses Dean again. "I promise I won't do it again, though."

Dean drifts into sleep with Sam's arms around him. He wakes up alone, of course, but the sun is bright and he's warm, relaxed, as though his dreams have been slow, good ones.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a sequel, [Between the Shadow and the Soul](http://archiveofourown.org/works/54470).


End file.
